The following areas are closed from March 1-July 31 or until further notice:

Twin Owls, Rock One, Batman Rock, Batman Pinnacle, Sheep Mountain, Thunder Buttress, The Parish, Lightning Rock and Checkerboard Rock are currently closed. The closures include the named rock formations and the areas extending 100 yards surrounding the base of the formation. This includes all climbing routes, outcroppings, cliffs, faces, ascent and descent routes and climber's access trails to the formation.

Description

This is a great finger crack on par with J-Crack or Loose Ends. It starts left of the Cave and makes a great finish to climbs on the right side of the Book. If linked with Fat City Crack, it makes arguably the best 5.10 climb at Lumpy Ridge. The wall left of the Cave contains several crack lines. Cheap Date is the left-leaning, left fork of a prominent thin system.

Start about twenty feet below the Cave, and climb up and slightly left on steep flakes and cracks to a stance at the fork (5.9). Take the left branch (crux) with perfect gear which must be placed from poor stances (the right fork is 5.11 and requires multiple RP placements). Belay on a sloping ledge, then scramble off or hand traverse left to the overhanging crack of Outlander, which is 5.10d.

Protection

Rack up to a #2 Friend with doubles on medium TCUs; bring a #3 Friend to finish on Outlander.

Hard climb on lead! Difficult to place good gear since the upper section requires a sort of lay backing technique. The crack in undulating and flaring, hence good placements require a good look, and free hand, good balance, and staying power. This is an excellent test of your ability to manage you head ( small cams keep my attention), gear, and climbing skills . Unfortunately I failed at the upper section but am looking forward to take the test again. An excelent finsh to Fat City for a free climbing masterpiece.

Very cool crack. I would emphasize what people said above about the difficulty of placing gear on lead for this crack. It climbs easier on TR for the LB/ramp walk technique. I would say the more critical cam size is blue TCU or green Alien (bring at least two in this range... 3 would have been nice)... yellow TCUs are too big for the cruxy part. Nuts work OK in a few places, but they are a lot more work to place.

I did this w/o any blind placements staying under the crack w/ good locks and toe cams and it didn't seem that hard. I'm sure I was smearing a lot with my left foot but there was also plenty of holds for it. An excellent route to send after getting beat down on Fat City.

5 stars if I could, one of the best pitches I've ever had the pleasure of on-siting at Lumpy. There are many routes here that get my hackles up but this one was a pleasure to be on, the climbing was so damn superb the gear was a mild afterthought, but I found all of it to be great.I laid the entire thing back in a strong Lumpy breeze and had nothing but a big grin on my face the whole time.No need ever to do the Cave Exit with this gem right there.

Right on Jimbo. This is indeed one a the best on Lumpy. Great climb, great gear, excellent position. Climbs really well. Didn't feel too difficult and if you can keep your balance you can avoid the pump. Good lead for the aspiring .10 leader. 5 stars!

This is my new favorite pitch at Lumpy! Bomber finger locks made it a lot less of an enduro layback than I was expecting. I found there to be reasonable stems to sufficient edges out left from which you can place pro. It definitely helped to just keep moving between these stances versus dinking around with blind placements mid-layback.

Like many before me have stated, this is the best pitch of climbing I have ever done at Lumpy. Everything about the route is positive... the gear, the fingerlocks, the feet and the exposure. Beautiful liebacking up a clean sweep of granite. Sooooo good.